


Blindsided

by Minne_My



Category: Hellraiser (Movies)
Genre: Senses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25989418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minne_My/pseuds/Minne_My
Summary: What if Julia had terrible eyesight?





	Blindsided

She wouldn't admit it to anyone. It wasn't just vanity, although she prided herself on that too. It was having to be part of a crowd. There was a time when Julia would have wanted nothing more than to be part of the crowd. Smug married with 2.4 children. But as her eyesight deteriorated, she found a strange solace in her isolation.

TV was easy. All she needed to do was stare at the screen and listen. Her hearing was perfectly fine. She knew when Larry was watching sports, the frantic male grunts of competition dulling her senses as they forced their way across the screen. It was the boxing that used to sicken her. But the images of all that flesh senselessly weeping blood started to blur around the edges and soon she was able to sit through it and think of something else.

She didn't need sight to tell her what a shabby house they'd walked into, she could smell the damp straight away. The smell of neglect and decay, wherever Frank was, he hadn't been there for a long time. She barely glanced at the tat for that passed for décor, shrugged when Larry said they'd give the place a makeover. She'd never cared for knick-knacks or feature walls. All she wanted was to sense Frank's presence in the house. He'd smelt of petrichor and a hint of cedar. His touch had been searingly hot, almost electric, dancing across her skin like pin pricks, almost too much to handle. She felt like she was going to drown and welcomed it, not knowing that the best and worst thing would happen to her that day, opening the door to the devil dressed in black, haloed within the dimly registered raindrops. She'd heard the rain so why had it taken her so long to realise that he needed a towel? She could feel his gaze scorching her skin even when she was on the other side of the room. Those moments trapped between his rough thrusting denim above her and that ridiculously innocent wedding dress beneath her, the tulle petticoat scratching where the silk sleeves soothed, she thought she'd happily die like this, not caring where which afterlife she'd end up in. How different would it have been if she'd looked up at him then? Could she have seen something softer within him? The danger in his stare when he'd flicked a blade up to her collar bone nearly paralysed her, yet she wanted it more than anything. She'd seen him the clearest then. She felt the air around her tremble with her breath and swore to him and to that sensation inside her that she'd do anything to feel that again. _Anything_.

When she looked at the photos of him with other women, she searched to find an ounce of the arrogance that had inexplicably attracted her to him. The sound of Larry tramping around downstairs interrupted her thoughts and she grimaced with impatience, tuning back into reality. How she hated her reality.

Now she was stuck at this dinner party full of Frank's friends, the ones she was to adopt when she married him, not that she remembered who all of them were. But the lights were dim, the shifting shadows capturing her attention more intently than the conversation swirling around her and she only recognised Larry and Kirsty's voices. She let the sounds wash over her. She could see flashes of white bandage every time Larry moved his hand, stamping down on her irritation that he had come running to her, imploringly holding out his bloodied flesh to soothe, like she was his mother, just at the moment when her memory of Frank was at its climax. She resisted rolling her eyes when she saw the bandage again. It had only taken her another few minutes to decide to resort to an old trick. Feigning a headache was easy when her eyesight was blurry.

The attic was supposed to be empty. It certainly looked empty. But she could feel the air quiver, an uneasy shift of atmosphere that had nothing to do with the footfall of the rats. There was a slight thrum under her feet. If she stood there long enough without distraction, she could feel it, like a heart beating out of sync. If she would never see Frank again, his face was in her memory. She had that at least.

She wondered how long it would take until the blindness would overtake her.


End file.
